Associate Professor / International Relations Coordinator Royal Academy of Music, Aalborg

WHAT IS YOUR BACKGROUND?

I studied at RAMA in Aarhus. Graduated in 1993 with "Rhythmical Guitar" as my specialty. I also graduated in Ensemble teaching pedagogy, choir conducting and children's music, so I have a relatively broad background. Only a year after graduating, I was headhunted as a teacher at the music academies in Aarhus and Aalborg. 1998 I was assigned as "Associate Professor". Besides my teaching job at RAMA I play concerts, compose, arrange, do workshops and masterclasses.

WHAT IS YOUR PATH TO THE CURRENT POSITION?

Besides teaching I have been working in the study counsel, been a part of developing and updating curriculums, been the head of the Pop/Jazz department here in Aalborg. Along that road I was asked to become the international coordinator in Aalborg. That was back in 2008. I remember my first AEC-meeting in Manchester. Big, fascinating and chaotic. Meeting the Nordplus colleagues later that year in Tallinn, was like getting a new, cozy and safe Nordic international family.

WHAT IS YOUR PASSION IN YOUR JOB?

I am a "MUSIC-person". I am way more into music-content than "the beauty of administrative structures". I like helping the students in their careers and facilitating teacher exchanges. I like to see things happen around me. The two larger projects I have designed (so far): The Band Teaching Conference and the CAB-project, were both built around - and born from - my "MUSIC-person"-standing point and expertise. Adding my administrative skills and getting help and support from my Nordplus IRC-colleagues, helped to place myself in my personal sweet spot, where I work the best. The bigger picture: Some of "us" modern human beings departed Africa around 50.000 years ago and spread out all over the globe. Now we know where everybody ended up. In the last couple of hundred years, we have been able to travel and visit the other branches of the family. With the invention of commercial flights, the "family-reunion" has speeded up dramatically. Globalization can be seen as one big family-reunion for the human race, a family that shares 99,9 of their DNA, and THIS is where we, the international coordinators, come in. In the sweet spot of the most important event for the human race. This will not be without fights and arguments, and it will probably take a couple of hundred years, but WE are in the middle of it. NOW.